-LRB- CNN -RRB- -- Less than three months ago , the Supreme Court of the United States handed down eagerly awaited rulings on same-sex marriage , voting rights and affirmative action . Next month , the court will begin its new term and likely deal with controversial issues such as abortion , campaign finance reform and the separation of church and state .

When the court is in the middle of a term , it is easy to focus on hard legal questions , the legal views of individual justices and the consequences of landmark decisions . Now is a good time , when the court is in recess , to take a step back and look at the institution itself .

A lifetime is too long

First , our Supreme Court justices are the only judges in the world who sit on a country 's highest court and have life tenure . Because the president nominates the justices and the Senate confirms them , the American people do not elect the justices and can not vote them out of office . In light of the crucial role the court plays across the spectrum of social , legal and political issues , the question of how long our justices serve should be re-examined .

Supreme Court justices often serve more than 25 years and beyond the time they are still fit to perform their duties . For example , according to renown author David Garrow , both Justices William O. Douglas and Thurgood Marshall remained on the bench well after their skills had significantly diminished beyond the point of competence .

The usual justification for life tenure is that the justices need to be independent of the other branches of the government to adequately perform their duties . This need for independence is real and compelling , but there are other ways to achieve that goal .

Other countries use fixed terms , retirement ages or a combination of the two to achieve the necessary independence . There simply is no persuasive reason to allow governmental officials who have virtually unreviewable power to hold their offices for life .

Few witnesses to history

The second aspect of our Supreme Court that needs to be changed is the lack of television coverage of oral arguments and decision announcements . What a shame that during the last week of June when the court handed down and read from the bench numerous important decisions -- including the overturning of the Defense of Marriage Act and the formula in Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act -- the American people had to hear the news indirectly from media personalities instead of the justices .

Similarly in 2012 , when the court held three days of oral arguments on the president 's most important piece of legislation , the Affordable Care Act , the public should have been able to witness those arguments just like the lucky few who happened to be in the courtroom .

Moreover , it is close to a tragedy that future generations will have absolutely no video record of the court 's arguments or decisions in these landmark cases . It would be an invaluable learning tool if young Americans today could see the oral arguments in Brown v. Board of Education or Roe v. Wade .

More than 30 state supreme courts allow cameras in the courtroom with great success . Supreme Court Justices John Roberts and Anthony Kennedy have suggested that the presence of television would lead to grandstanding by lawyers and maybe even the justices themselves , but the experiences in state courts demonstrate such concerns are greatly exaggerated .

When Arkansas was considering placing cameras in the courtroom , Justice Robert L. Brown conducted a survey and found that `` state supreme courts have blazed a significant technological trail . ... The public 's response , according to those state supreme courts that provide those video broadcasts , border -LSB- ed -RSB- on the exuberant ... -LSB- N -RSB- o state that currently provides video of its oral arguments cites grandstanding as a problem . ''

Arkansas has joined the majority of states that allow cameras in their courtrooms . There is simply no good reason for the Supreme Court not to do exactly the same thing .

A joke of a job interview

Finally , we have to do something about the national farce that is our Supreme Court nomination process .

The sad spectacle of senators asking questions drafted by their staffs and then allowing the nominees to duck them should give way to serious conversations about the nominees ' views so that the American people can participate more fully in the confirmation process . As almost everyone now knows , the justices have enormous discretion to decide cases in accordance with their personal and political value systems .

The differences between Justices Antonin Scalia and Ruth Bader Ginsburg on most constitutional questions have nothing to do with legal interpretation and everything to do with their different backgrounds , experiences and values .

The Senate should do a much better job requiring nominees to answer hard questions about those values and experiences before the nominees are allowed to sit on the highest court in the land .

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Eric Segall .

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Eric Segall : Life tenure allows justices to serve past the point of competence

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Segall : Court should follow lead of many states and allow cameras in courtroom

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The Supreme Court nomination process is a farce , he adds